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Most big cities have Hispanic neighborhoods, even in tiny Charlottesville, VA, there is a trailer park where the illegal immigrants live. But I'm wondering where in the U.S. are there entire tracts of 10,000+ people where you can't get by without speaking Spanish.
But you can't tell from these statistics whether the whole city is a mix of Spanish and English speakers and bilinguals, or whether there are large areas which are Spanish-only.
I'm thinking there are some obvious places: All of Puerto Rico, certain parts of South Florida in and near Miami, some places in and near Los Angeles, and the parts of Texas on the Rio Grande. Where else?
Miami for sure. I have had a tough time buying a watch with an alarm function on South Beach using English. I HAD to switch to Spanish to tell the sales lady at Burdines (now Macy's) what I wanted.
I also had a lay-over at MIA and wanted to eat a vegetarian pizza. Again, I had to order in Spanish.
While staying at a hotel in South Beach, the manager was trying to call a company so that they could fix the front door. The first company did not have anyone in the office who spoke English. Same with the second. The manager was quite frustrated and angry. Alas, who works in Miami and doesn't speak any Spanish?
It also used to be that East Los Angeles conducted life in Spanish. I am not sure how much it has changed over the years as my experience with living in L.A. was quite a few years ago.
There's a city south of Yuma called San Luis which has clashed with the state of Arizona several times over whether or not city officials need to be fluent in English:
Miami for sure. I have had a tough time buying a watch with an alarm function on South Beach using English. I HAD to switch to Spanish to tell the sales lady at Burdines (now Macy's) what I wanted.
I also had a lay-over at MIA and wanted to eat a vegetarian pizza. Again, I had to order in Spanish.
While staying at a hotel in South Beach, the manager was trying to call a company so that they could fix the front door. The first company did not have anyone in the office who spoke English. Same with the second. The manager was quite frustrated and angry. Alas, who works in Miami and doesn't speak any Spanish?
It also used to be that East Los Angeles conducted life in Spanish. I am not sure how much it has changed over the years as my experience with living in L.A. was quite a few years ago.
12 years in SouthBeach and I only speak English. I don't have any problems.
I shopped at Burdines (now Macy's), bought watches and ordered pizza.
When I moved to south Texas, I had hopes that maybe I could practice my Spanish But the Hispanics here don't want Anglos speaking Spanish to them, they want all the English practice they can get. Every once in a while, I encounter someone whose Spanish is not good enough yet, and I have to use Spanish, but that is very rare.
There are a few little agricultural towns of a few hundred people in South Texas where most people cannot speak English, But don't worry, you'll never be in one of those towns, they're pretty far off the beaten track.
Parts of Miami
San Antonio
Laredo
Brownsville
El Centro
border towns for the most part. Nearly everywhere else if a person has trouble, theyll go to someone they work with who speaks English. Those border towns in Texas give you no quarter though
When I moved to south Texas, I had hopes that maybe I could practice my Spanish But the Hispanics here don't want Anglos speaking Spanish to them, they want all the English practice they can get. Every once in a while, I encounter someone whose Spanish is not good enough yet, and I have to use Spanish, but that is very rare.
Isn't it true that a lot of the older-school Tejanos (as opposed to recent Mexican immigrants) don't really speak Spanish well anyway? I had a friend who was 5th generation American from El Paso, and he told me his Spanish was so bad he preferred not to speak it at all for fear of embarrassing himself.
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